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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has signed a bill raising the nation’s borrowing limit by $2.5 trillion, avoiding a potentially catastrophic default and resolving the turbulent issue until after the 2022 midterm elections. The House voted early Wednesday to raise the debt limit, amid urgent warnings from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that further delay

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinian Health Ministry says it has identified its first three cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in the occupied West Bank. The ministry says the cases were detected in three Palestinians who had recently returned from abroad. It added that medical teams are tracking down and testing

REDDING, Calif. (AP) — Heavy snow, blizzard conditions and stuck vehicles have prompted authorities to impose a shutdown of a portion of the West Coast’s major interstate that links California with Oregon. California officials Wednesday afternoon closed Interstate 5 north of the city of Redding as the latest of back-to-back storms slammed the region. The

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and AAMER MADHANI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has given final approval to a bill barring all imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove they were produced without forced labor. In doing so they overcame initial hesitation from the White House and what supporters say was opposition from

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says it is responding to reports of a shooting attack at a West Bank settlement. It said the shooting on Thursday night took place near the settlement of Homesh, in the northern West Bank, but gave no further details.

PARIS (AP) — The United Nations cultural agency has placed a traditional Haitian soup widely seen as a symbol of the nation’s independence on its prized intangible cultural heritage list. UNESCO’S director-general says joumou soup “tells the story of the heroes and heroines of Haitian independence, their struggle for human rights and their hard-won freedom.”

By MARK KENNEDY and JILL LAWLESS Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Many stages on both Broadway and the West End have been forced to go dark once more as the live theater community grapples with new backstage outbreaks of the coronavirus and its variants. The new shutdowns have temporarily closed everything from London’s revival

By The Associated Press In Germany, a train passes a railroad crossing surrounded by floodwaters. In Greece, a man stands off a beach and watches a wildfire burn across the water. In Colombia, a landscape of cracked mud to the horizon evokes a sci-fi world even as it tells the story of a drying lagoon

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Labor unions led by the Greek Communist Party are demanding a return of wage and pension levels that were axed during three successive international bailouts. Some 2,000 protesters gathered in front of the parliament building in central Athens as lawmakers debated the 2022 budget on Thursday. The budget includes a proposed